Will BlackBerry go private?

According to Reuters, top executives at BlackBerry have considered taking the company private, and remain open to the idea. BlackBerry has apparently talked to Silver Lake Partners, the private equity firm that is involved with Dell's effort to go private. No deal has been made, but BlackBerry is apparently looking at its options.

BlackBerry's openness to consider a deal marks a radical shift in thinking at the once high-flying smartphone maker. Until recently, BlackBerry, formerly known as Research in Motion and a pioneer in providing secured emails on handheld devices, had been bent on staying independent, betting its turnaround on its latest smartphones.

Last month, Heins said the company was on the right track and just needed more time to fix its problems. He said the company will unveil more devices that run on the BlackBerry 10 operating system over the next eight months.

The thinking is that going private would allow the company to fix its problems in private, instead of under the scrutiny of the public eye. That's not a bad idea, but they would need to make sure they kept their name in front of the public.

Other options include licensing the BlackBerry OS, but who would want it? BlackBerry is already moving to make BBM available on Android and iOS but is there a company out there who would license BlackBerry's OS when they could use Android for free?